On any
given Sunday
Last
night, the same awkward dreams of getting lost; and this morning, waking up little
rested to begin the day reading the same old snark at the same old news
feeds. To whom we are superior today,
who never go lost: Woody Allen, Vladimir Putin, indeed all of Russia. We could
have choreographed a better opening ceremony. We could have danced a better dance, sung a better song; we could have
run rings around the rings.
For, thanks be to God, we are superior
to all things, and there is no manner of thing we could not have done
better. There is nothing awry in our lives, except your inability to go
back and do as we say you should have. (Please
know: “Thanks be to God” is a verbal tic. For God, if he exist, is an incompetent fool compared to our hindsight, our
knowledge-of-the-way-things-shouldhavebeen. Haec diximus.)
Anywhere
else than our writing desk is the hinterland, the way it is depicted in “Barney
Google and Snuffy Smith”: women in shapeless sacks, kerchiefs wound about their
heads; men in overalls and crumpled stove-pipe hats; toothless children;
simpletons all. G-d-, if we couldn’t
run New Jersey, West Virginia, and the Olympic games – all at once – better than
the thousands of buffoons now in charge. So give three cheers and one cheer more for the mighty pundits of the
op-press corps.
***
Why
are we all so full of hate, or at
least its self-righteous cousin, contempt? Why are we all so small of soul we can’t imagine anyone’s motives ever approaching
pure? – our own excepted, of course.
(I’m tempted this Sunday morning to
blame it on the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Paul, who could not love all
humankind alike but had to have his favorites to whom he gave the Law or the Gospel with which not only to judge
themselves but all others besides.)
***
Wit is
one thing; humor is quite another. Witty
self-deprecation is nothing like true modesty.
(It is actually closer to overweening pride. “Look: I can make fun of myself. No, look. Here!” Don’t look away, don’t dare look away. Look here. Look! Aren’t I being funny about myself?)
Modesty recognizes the ambiguous
nature of our life among others. Witty
self-deprecation pays no attention to others at all. Look. Here.
Modesty
doesn’t judge lest it be judged. Witty
s-d holds the self up as the rule. I
can be self-deprecating because my ideal (true) self is – let’s put false modesty aside – the measure of all
things. “Everyone has his prejudices
but, thanks be to God, mine are the right ones.” (True, I chuckle when I say that, but it
doesn’t make it any less true. I can
laugh at myself, we have established that – and you may join in and laugh with me. But do not laugh at me; don’t
let your laughing with me go on a millisecond after my own laughter stops.)
***
I am
tempted to blame Yahweh, and I begin wondering again about the wisdom of
polytheism (as Ovid, e.g., describes it),
acknowledging – even invoking (as well as evoking) – ambiguity. The gods
may be as jealous as Yahweh, I begin to write; but they can’t be. The jealousy of one is mocked and tempered by
the jealousy of another – tempered, yes, even thwarted. So every little corner of the world becomes mysterious and every people in every corner chosen by one deity or another.
“Everyone may have his prejudices, but
thanks to the god of this place, mine are the right ones . . . at least here. When we come to your place . . . .”
***
From
the doesn’t-happen-often-enough department. The story of Calchas, whose wisdom helped guide the Greeks through the
Trojan War. But! Chalchas “was undone by
his [resulting] high opinion of himself. Challenged to a guessing contest by Mopsus, he failed to estimate the
number of figs in a tree. When his
opponent guessed correctly, Calchas
strangled on his own vanity.” (Evslin's Gods, Demigods & Demons, 30)
Think of vanity as both overweening
pride and complete emptiness, so that the vain soothsayer, prognosticator, politico,
pundit having puffed forth so much carbon dioxide finds he cannot breathe; he
chokes and the one that claims to see goes blind from lack of oxygen to his
mighty brain.
Y
Thanks to Bob Hodgell for the wonderful "Words, Words, Words."
W
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